Mental Block

Recently, I ran out of ideas about what to blog. Sometimes I started writing but cannot continue and then I moved on to another topic but stopped halfway as well. It's like the same feeling I get when I was sitting in MPH2 with a paper full of essay questions, an A4 booklet and 3 hours to kill. And then starting to think...

"Which questions to answer? Which questions to answer?"

Then one question starts to look appealing. Halfway through mental block sets in - I'm stuck! I take another look at the question paper again, another question starts to look more appealing. And time is running out....Before I know it, the Chief Examiner proclaim ominously through the microphone...

"You have 15 mins left!"

Arghh...

Haha...many of us sure remember those painful NUS exams. One of my professors, Chan Kwok Bun used to say, "three hours is what it takes to decide your life"! Life really sucks if one fails because one have to repeat the failed module. But what he was talking about is perhaps that the paper also determines one's life chances. During my time, failure of one paper usually eliminates one's chance of qualifying for the honours program. And not doing honours excludes one from a payscale beyond the ordinary bachelor degree. So one starts his/her career at a lower rank in the bureaucracy, gets promoted later than his/her peers, develops a lower self-esteem and ends up being a loser in life. Nah, the example is very ridiculous but you get the idea that how failing a 3 hours paper can do to disrupt one's life. =P

Lucky me, I had the luck of scraping through every paper thrown my way and sneaked my way into the honors program and somehow graduated. Although in the first place, I really have no idea why I enrolled in the honors program.

By the way, here's what the internet has to offer on overcoming mental block:

1. Fake violent convulsions, induce green slime vomiting, shudder erratically claiming the "Martians are coming to get me" and hope that the exam is cancelled or at least postponed because of the emotional upset caused by your sudden illness.

2. The Science of Neuro Linguistic Programming (or NLP for short) has shown that by looking up we access information from our memories. So if you are faced with a mental block, instead of staring at your desk, look up as you search for that crucial information.

3. Stop saying "I don't know this …. I don't know this". Now say to yourself "If I did know the answer, what would I write?" and see what happens.

4. Breathe deeply and relax

(Plagarized from www.positivelymad.co.uk)